The Long Night
by Quist
Summary: Even the longest night will end with the rising sun. Or, the life story of Lily Evans Potter told in ten acts. Ch2: Year 1. "It is a simple, black-bound, journal from a variety store in Vauxhill Road, London."
1. Act 0

**Title: **The Long Night

**Author: **Quist

**Rating: **K+

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter.

**Summary: **Even the longest night will end with the rising sun. Or, the life story of Lily Evans Potter told in ten acts.

* * *

**Chapter 1: **Act 0

* * *

0.

The day Lily Evans was born, it was snowing. Not tiny little falling flakes that made children giggle as they caught it on their tongues, but a howling, vengeful blizzard that tried to smother the small town and everyone in it.

On the ground, snow gathered several feet thick, swallowing the edges of well-insulated buildings and clumsily biting at the boots of the few passerby. The Evans, at the hospital for the birth of their second child, barely noticed. Little Petunia was drowsily nodding away on the seats in the waiting room as her father paced nervously in front of her. They had arrived in the early afternoon. It was already midnight.

Giving birth was long and painful, and Iris Evans nearly bled to death. Her second daughter was born just before the breaking of the dawn, wailing unhappily as she was tugged out of her warm little home and into a dark, cold world of sterile gloves and bright artificial light.

The doctors warned that the baby might not survive, that she was almost six weeks premature, but Harry Evans barely heard the warnings. Instead, the dark-haired father cradled his newest child happily as the first rays of sunlight lit up a pair of brilliant emerald eyes.

* * *

1.

Lily loved the swing set at the playground. When her father had the time, he would push her, so that she swung higher, higher, _higher_. Lily loved the feeling of being in the air, loved the exhilaration of rising high in the sky. Lily wanted to fly someday. Lily wanted to fly now.

"Daddy, me too!" Tuney said, tugging at Harry's hand. "Not fair!"

Harry Evans smiled at his elder daughter as he picked her up and set her on the swing next to Lily. "Ready, Tuney?"

Tuney nodded fervently, happy that her father was paying attention to her, but Lily scowled. With the lapse in her father's pushing, her swing was going lower and lower. She was flying, and she couldn't fly if Daddy was pushing Tuney. "Daddy!"

"I have to push your sister, Lily-flower. We all have to share, remember?" Harry's voice was gentle, like his personality. Everyone all around the neighborhood knew that Harry was a mild man, content with his small family and worn house. Everyone around the neighborhood knew that his wife was not. "Just kick your legs if you want to go higher."

Lily kicked her legs out in the way she had seen the older girls do when they played on the playground. She grinned as she went higher again. From this position, she could see the row of shabby houses across the bushes. Then she went back again, and forward. Back and forward. Lily kicked. She wanted to go even higher.

At the peak of her next arc into the air, Lily raised her hands and laughed. She was going higher than Tuney, even without Daddy pushing her. "Look at me, Daddy! I'm gonna fly!"

Harry glanced as his younger daughter, and his eyes widened. "Lily!"

But Lily Evans was already soaring through the air, not noticing her father's panicked expression as he rushed to catch her. She reached out her arms, like a bird, and giggled. Already, she could feel the wind whipping past her cheeks, blowing her hair into disarray; Mummy would so be mad that her perfect pigtails were gone. But Lily hated those pigtails; Lily wasn't a little lady, no matter what Mummy wanted. Mummy could make Tuney a little lady, but Lily wanted to fly.

Strong hands pulled her out of the air, and she pouted in her father's arms. "Daddy, I was flying."

Harry forced himself to smile. "Don't do that again, alright, Lily-flower? It's dangerous."

"But I like flying."

"No." Harry's voice was final. Lily scowled again as her father refused to let her back on the swing.

It wasn't dangerous. Lily Evans was born to soar in the skies. Lily Evans would never fall.

* * *

2.

"Daddy?"

Harry Evans looked up and saw his younger daughter in the doorway, clutching a ragged, second-hand blanket around her. "Yes, Lily-flower?"

"I want to hear a story." Lily peered at her father with wide emerald eyes. "A Lily story, not a Tuney story."

Harry smiled wearily. "Maybe tomorrow, Lily-flower. Daddy already told you and Tuney a story today, remember? Daddy's tired, and you should be tired too. If Mummy finds you out of bed, she will be upset that her Lily-flower isn't sleeping when she should be."

But Iris Evans wouldn't, not today. Iris Evans was out of the house, as she so often was lately. Iris preferred for Harry to take care of Petunia and Lily while she "had some fun."

Lily's lower lip wobbled. "No story?" Daddy loved telling stories, especially to her. Tuney liked stories about magic, about wizards and witches with spells at their fingertips and power in their words, stories that had warrior mermaids who lived in an enchanted lake and dragons that could burn entire towns with their fiery breaths, but Lily liked stories about knights who defied evil villains to rescue their fair maidens, about handsome lords who rode off with beautiful ladies on magnificent steeds into the sunset. Lily liked stories about love, because love was more real than magic.

Harry relented. "Alright, then. Come on." He patted the empty space on the other side of his bed, and Lily jumped in with a happy squeal. "But only _one_ story, Lily-flower. One."

Lily nodded happily. If she wanted another story, she could always demand one later. Daddy never refused his Lily-flower anything.

"Once upon a time, there was simple young farmboy who met a beautiful princess…"

* * *

3.

Iris threw a vase at her silent husband, lips pinched petulantly like a whiny child. "You don't have any right to talk like this to me! You know, that if it hadn't been for that stupid party Leanne threw, I wouldn't be married to some—some—"

"Some failure like me?" Harry said bitterly.

Iris glowered and stormed out the door. She was still wearing an obscene amount of make-up. Once upon a time, Iris Thompson had been a beautiful woman—all golden blond hair and flashing sapphire eyes and flawless complexion. She had been the kind of woman who turned heads by simply walking down a street form, who was adored universally by anyone she came across for her extraordinary beauty. Unlike the other girls, Iris Thompson had never experienced that awkward stage between being an overgrown child and a not-quite adult; simply, one day she had been a charming little girl with her hair in plaits and the next she had been a young woman.

Iris Thompson had never forgiven Harry Evans for marrying her and taking the bright future she had expected away from her.

Harry sighed, holding his head in his hands. His shoulders trembled.

"Is Mummy leaving?" Lily and Tuney had hidden behind the kitchen wall to see what Mummy and Daddy were shouting about. Then Mummy had gone up and left, and Lily wanted her to come back desperately.

"Shh!" Tuney hissed, but it was too late. Harry had heard them.

"You can come out."

The guilty shuffling of two sets of feet were heard as Tuney and Lily stepped out from behind the kitchen wall. They looked terribly frightened, Tuney's eyes large with worry, and Harry felt a surge of anger against Iris for shouting where their two daughters could hear.

"Is Mummy leaving us forever?" Lily asked.

"Of course not," Harry said as he walked over to enclose both of his daughters in a tight hug. Iris had bouts of temper, but she loved her daughters, even if she couldn't care less about him. She wouldn't leave them, just like this. "Mummy's just a little mad at Daddy. She'll be back soon."

Lily snuggled against her father. Daddy never lied to her.

Two days later, Iris Evans returned, carrying two wrapped china dolls as an apology for leaving the house for so long. Tuney and Lily were too happy to see their mother again to remember about the incident that had happened. In the years after, the arguments between Harry and Iris became even more frequent, but no matter how many times Iris stormed out, she always came back. Tuney and Lily learned not to talk about the arguments, especially out of the house. To the rest of the neighborhood, Harry and Iris Evans were the perfect couple.

Tuney became less sure of this as time went on, but Lily continued to firmly believe that her parents were very much in love.

After all, love was more real than magic. If Tuney could believe in magic, then Lily could believe in love.

* * *

4.

To the day she died, Lily would deny that her natural hair color was anything other than the deep auburn that all her classmates and friends remembered. Lily likes having red hair: red is more exciting than brown hair, like Uncle Jem, or hair, like Daddy, or even blonde hair, like Mummy and Tuney.

Recently, the fashion was to have red hair, and Mummy loved fashion, so Mummy had a lot of red dye in the make-up case she thought was too high for Lily and Tuney to reach. She was right about Tuney. Not about Lily.

"Did you find it?" Tuney asked from where she was keeping a lookout.

"Not yet." Lily pulls a box of something out. It has a picture of a person with red hair on the front. She opened the box and sniffed it, and gagged. It smelled horrible. "Is it this one, Tuney?"

Tuney examined the box, and smiles approvingly. "Yup." She drags Lily to their bedroom, where a tub of water awaits, and closes the door. "You first." Tuney holds out her hands, caked in a stinking, reddish, muddy mixture; to a less brave child, this sight would recall the claws of little beasties that lived in swamps, but to Lily…

"Okay." Lily is excited. She cannot wait to have red hair, even if it smells horrible. Red hair would be so much better than the muddy brown her hair was normally.

Later, Harry Evans would return home from work to find two small girls shrieking and throwing dark red powder at each other. When everything was cleaned-up and put away—including the remnants of the dye, to Lily's disappointment—Harry would set to work removing the red color from his daughter's hair. Tuney screeches and shouts and pleads, but after an hour, her hair is as blonde as it used to be.

Lily is suddenly anxious that her red hair will be gone the same way Tuney's went. Lily does not want to have plain brown hair again.

But no matter how much Harry scrubs and washes, Lily's hair remains the same dark red for the rest of her life. Eventually, even Petunia forgets that Lily Evans was not born with red hair.

Lily prefers it this way.

* * *

5.

"I hate Jack Creevey!" Lily exclaimed as she and Tuney walked back home. "He's so—ugh!"

"He's so ugh?" Tuney asked.

"You know what I mean!" Lily scowled at the thought of Jack Creevey. He had been so mean to her—sticking out his tongue when the teacher's back was turned, tugging at her perfectly plaited hair, showing her that half-squashed frog at lunchtime. "I hate him!"

Tuney suppressed a smirk. "I think that you like him!"

"I do not!" Lily was appropriately appalled at this. She would never like Jack Creevey. Jack Creevey was mean and annoying. "How could you say that?"

"Well," Tuney pretended to be deep in thought. She was enjoying teasing Lily about Jack, which was almost her duty, as Lily's older sister. "_I _know things. Remember, I'm two years older than you." She said that as if two years of age could clearly mark the separation between ignorance and wisdom.

"What?! But I don't like Jack Creevey! He's so mean and big, and he looks like—like an ogre! You know, like the ogres Daddy tells you stories about. I don't like him!"

"Yes, you do!"

"No, I don't!"

"Do!"

"Don't!"

"Do!"

* * *

6.

By the time she was nine, Lily had learned that she could do more than fly on a swing. She could make objects come to her if they were too high for her to reach, and she could make people do what she wanted. But only sometimes; Daddy was the only person who would do what she wanted no matter what, but Lily didn't think that her special powers had anything to do with that.

At least she could make Jack Creevey stop bothering her.

Yesterday, Daddy had told Tuney a story about a girl who could make flowers open and close at will. Everyone called her the Flower Witch, but she didn't care. She loved flowers, and flowers loved her. So she made them open and close, and open and close, until one day, an evil man with many snakes traveled through the village and heard of her. He wanted her to join him, so that he could be even more powerful, but she refused, so he commanded his snakes to chase her down and bring her to him. She tried to escape, but she couldn't outrun the snakes, and she didn't want to help the evil snakelord hurt people, so she went to her precious flowers, and sang to them. They absorbed her sadness, and up sprang a poisonous flower, a nightshade flower. She ate it, and died, and became the most beautiful flower in the meadow, a petunia.

Or that's was Tuney said she became. Lily had insisted that she became a lily. And then they had an argument.

Which was why Lily was out here today. She was going to find a pretty flower, and give it to her sister, and they could make-up and forget about the argument. Daddy had approved of this decision.

Lily plucked a pretty white flower from the bush; the first blossom of the spring. It was very pretty. Lily didn't know what kind of flower it was, but Daddy would, and Daddy could tell Tuney and Tuney and Lily could go back to being friends.

It had so many petals the petals were falling off. Lily frowned. She couldn't give Tuney a petal-less flower. She picked up the fallen petals and put it back on, but they wouldn't stay on. Even Lily's powers couldn't make the flower look more like it was before.

Lily frowned again. Tuney was going to have to settle for a flower with a few fewer petals than it was supposed to, then. But then it wouldn't be as good a gift as it should have been.

Maybe if Lily tried to make the petals open and close, like in the story? Maybe Lily could do that, even if she couldn't make the petals go back on. Lily concentrated on the flower in her hands, concentrated on the petals moving in and out, shrinking and growing…

"Hey! What are you doing?" A voice behind Lily startled her. She jumped and turned around to see a small boy with scraggly black hair. He wore an overly-large smock and was scowling at her. "You can't just steal the flowers."

"I'm not!" Lily said defensively. "It's not like these are your flowers anyway!"

"But—" The boy stopped when his gaze caught on the flower itself. "What are you doing to that flower?"

Lily looked down—and just like in the story, the petals were opening and closing, like many-lipped oyster. She squeaked; partly because she was surprised that it had worked, partly because Mummy had told her not to show anyone else that she could do things like this. Mummy was always so mad when Lily did something with her powers that Lily never did it at home. Mummy wanted Lily to be a little lady, and little ladies didn't do strange, unexplainable things. The flower dropped to her feet, still opening and closing, and Lily ran.

"Wait!" The boy called after her, but Lily ignored him.

Back at home, Tuney apologized, and Lily apologized, and they made up without the flower. Lily forgot all about the incident with the boy. The boy did not forget all about the incident with Lily.

* * *

7.

Tuney didn't like the Snape kid, and had told Lily that he was a liar and a freak. He lived with his drunk father and strange mother down by the river, the worst area. Everyone there was poor and evil and filthy, and if a little girl went down there, she would be kidnapped and sold and never see her family again. So no little girls went down there, and no matter what the boys bragged at school, none of them were brave enough to go down there either.

Lily sneaked to Spinner's End despite this. Lily was brave—braver than the boys at the school, especially that rat-faced Andy Polkiss. She had decked him in the face when he called Tuney horse-faced, and he hadn't dared say anything bad about Tuney to her face again. And Mummy—and maybe even Daddy—wouldn't want to her to meet with a boy who lived down by the river, but Mummy and Daddy were arguing again, even though they loved each other very much, so Lily was able to slip out.

Lily was already at the edge of the dirty, ghetto neighborhood when she realized that she did not know the boy's name. Or where he lived. Or even how to find him.

Oops. Lily hovered at the riverside. Tuney had said that he lived near the river, but there were lots of houses down here.

A coarse hand landed on her shoulder heavily. Lily jumped. She was still brave, though, because she didn't scream when a scary hook-nosed man was seen to be towering over her. The man is at least three times as tall and twice as wide as nine-year-old Lily.

"Ye don't b'long here," he grunted out. His breath smells of cheap beer and stale sweat. "Go home." He pushes her lightly.

Lily nods shakily and stumbled a few steps back. The hook-nosed man lumbers his way past her; he is drunk. Lily knows what a drunk person looks like, because Mummy sometimes pulls out a bottle of sherry when Daddy isn't home, and drinks. Tuney never sees—Tuney is at home less and less as she grows older—and Lily doesn't want to tell Tuney. Lily doesn't want to think about it.

The man goes into a dilapidated house, and slams the door behind her. Lily is so caught up in watching him—or at least that's what she insists when she later tells Daddy about this—that she jumps at least twice as high as she did when the man put his hand on her shoulder, even though it is only a light tap.

She turns around, and sees the boy. "It's you!"

"Yeah. Uh, I'm sorry about calling you a witch," he ventures, suddenly looking a little nervous. The boy shifts his weight on his feet, and Lily notices that his shoes are worn and old; his socks are visible through the holes in them. "I didn't mean to insult you or anything, but I mean, you really are, I mean, not that—"

"It's okay," Lily cuts off his stammering. She feels a little sorry for this boy. Her wardrobe consists almost entirely of Tuney's hand-me-downs, but they are still nicer than what the boy is wearing. Daddy never lets her or Tuney wear things that will make the other children mock them in the schoolyard, even if his own shirts are all mended in too many places to count because he doesn't have money to buy stuff for himself.

The boy smiles, and Lily thinks that he looks at lot nicer when he smiles.

* * *

8.

Lily remembers the day she learns that the hook-nosed man who had scared—no, _surprised_ her was Sev's father. Mummy was out again, and Tuney was studying, but Lily was bored, so Daddy was showing her his old pictures. Daddy showed her pictures of him and Mummy—who looked so much younger and happier. Mummy almost never looks happy anymore, especially when Daddy's at home.

"And that's Jem Thomas there—he was a really good football player, all the boys at school were so jealous of him. He loved to boast about his skill, and all the girls swooned at his feet." Daddy chuckled. "I liked him though, since he was a good guy on the inside, even if he acted like he wasn't. You remember him right? He used to come around and give you and Tuney candy all the time."

That he did. But Lily also remembers the last time she saw Jem Thomas. It had been late at night, and Mummy was out and Tuney asleep. Lily had slipped downstairs, and saw her "Uncle" Jem. He had been asking Daddy to lend him some money, as he always seemed to be doing in those last few visits. Daddy had refused, and there was a big argument, bigger than Daddy and Mummy's arguments. It had been scary, but that was the last time she saw Jem Thomas.

Daddy never talked about it. Lily never asked.

Daddy had put the photo down, and pulled out a second one, depicting a twenty-year-old Daddy with a hook-nosed man. Lily gasps. "I've seen him!"

Daddy looks surprised. "That's Toby Snape. We used to be friends of a sort, but then he married a—" Harry clams his mouth shut before he can say something that his ten-year-old daughter shouldn't hear. Seeing the look in Lily's eyes—emerald, like his, though Tuney had Iris' eyes—he abruptly changes the subject tactfully. "You're friends with his son, right? Severus?"

Harry hasn't spoken to Tobias Snape for almost fifteen years now.

"Yeah." Lily stares in fascination at the picture. Toby Snape looks clean and sober, not like the hulk of a man who had told her to go away that day. She wonders what it is like for Sev to have a father like that—drunk, enormous, rude. Daddy is never drunk, and he always nice. Daddy never raises his voice to her or Tuney, ever, not like Mummy occasionally does.

Lily smiles at Daddy. Daddy is the best.

* * *

9.

The day before boarding Platform 9 ¾, Lily cannot sleep. She fidgets and turns and tosses and worries. In the other bed, Tuney is obstinately still, and Lily knows that her sister cannot sleep either.

It isn't fair, that Lily is the witch, Lily thinks. Tuney loved magic so much, wanted so to have Lily's powers and be able to go to Hogwarts—what a strange name for a school of magic!—that Lily almost wishes that she can give her magic to her sister. Almost. Lily does like having her special powers.

Lily likes being able to pull objects to her from where they should be too high to reach. Lily likes soaring through the skies and making her father's fairy-tales come true.

But still, Lily cannot sleep. So she crawls up, as quietly as she can, and goes to the kitchen. The lights are on, and Daddy is in there. His eyes are closed, but they open as soon as Lily pads onto the tiled kitchen floor in her ragged bunny slippers. Lily knows that Daddy is waiting for Mummy to come home, though she pretends she doesn't.

Harry smiles wanly at his daughter. "You should be in bed, Lily-flower. Tomorrow's your big day."

"I know." Lily bites her lip. "Sev told me that we go on a train, and that we have to walk through a pillar to get onto the platform. Then we get Sorted by a hat when we get to the school." She shuffles nervously.

Harry knows his daughter well enough to know why she is unable to sleep. "Are you worried about the Sorting?" he asks gently.

"What if the Sorting Hat doesn't Sort me into any house? What if it decides that I'm too stupid, and unambitious, and cowardly, and lazy—"

"Whoa," Harry interrupts. He holds his hand up. "I know that my Lily-flower isn't any of those things." He bends down so that they are the same height. "You're the bravest, smartest, most beautiful girl I've ever seen." A memory of saying the exact same thing to a pretty blonde girl almost thirty years ago wrenches at his heartstrings, and Harry forces it down. "Any school would be lucky to have my lovely Lily as a student."

Lily's eyebrows knit together. "But what if none of my teachers like me? Or I fail out of Hogwarts?"

"Don't worry," Harry says empathetically. "You've learned a lot with Severus, remember? I'm sure you'll be the best in your year, and all the other girls and boys will be jealous." He smiles comfortingly. "Everyone will know who Lily Evans is, and everyone will want to be your friend."

Lily smiles back, uncertainly, and lets her father carry her back to bed. Later that night, the Evans household will be awakened by a young girl's scream when she wakes up from a nightmare of being chased down by a snake-faced man, and Iris Evans will blame her husband for telling too many scary stories to their daughters.

Lily will forget the dream by morning, and only remember it again ten years later, when the nightmare has become reality.


	2. Act 1

**Title: **The Long Night

**Author: **Quist

**Rating: **K+

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter.

**Summary: **Even the longest night will end with the rising sun. Or, the life story of Lily Evans Potter told in ten acts.

* * *

**Chapter 2: **Act 1

* * *

0.

_Now, where should I put you, Lily Evans? Not a bad mind, certainly, not at all. Should I choose to send to Ravenclaw, I am certain you will be a credit to that house._

"Sev says that we'll be in Slytherin together."

The Hat makes a humming sound. _Very loyal to your friends and your sister too. Hufflepuff would be proud to have you in your house._

"But I want to be in Slytherin."

_Do you? You certainly have qualities of a Slytherin: clever, ambitious, ruthless when the situation calls for it. But you think with your heart, not your head, and Slytherin is not a kind place for those who think with their heart. Gryffindor, perhaps? For the brave at heart?_

Gryffindor? Maybe…but Lily thinks about how excited Severus was that they would be able to learn magic together, how mean that Potter boy on the bus was. "But—"

_But what? Do you think you will flourish in Slytherin? _A series of images flash across her eyes: a man with dark green eyes reaching futilely for his wand as he disintegrated into thin air, an glassy-eyed woman staring into empty space, a handsome boy stumbling back when a girl with glasses dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. _No, child. They will destroy you, like they destroyed so many like you._

Lily hesitates. She tries to gather up her courage. "But I want—"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

* * *

1.

Hogwarts is so _big_. It is magical and special, and everything Lily can hope for. Lily has only been there a day, but already, she loves Hogwarts. She loves the classes, the teachers, the _magic_. She even loves the ghosts and the paintings and the staircases and the poltergeist.

Lily is a little disappointed that she and Sev are in separate houses, but she really seems to _fit_ in Gryffindor, so she isn't too upset about it.

Severus is. He mutters unhappily about it. "You should have been in Slytherin, with me. You're smart and clever, not stupid and reckless like the other fools. We can't even see each other anymore. Slytherins and Gryffindors only ever have Potions together."

Lily shrugs. It has been a tiring day, and night is creeping in on them. On the ceiling of the Great Hall, she finds herself fascinated by the stars that emulate the sky outside. "That doesn't mean that we can still be friends. That doesn't matter." She looks at him with hopeful emerald eyes that makes eleven-year-old Severus Snape's heart skip a beat. "Right?"

Severus can see that Lily is too naïve—too innocent—to see that yes, it matters very much. But he loves her innocence, so he doesn't contradict her. "Right." He tries to infuse a confidence he doesn't feel in his voice.

Lily smiles.

* * *

2.

Lily could not wait for the first flying class Severus had told her all about wizards and witches flying on broomsticks in the magical world and about the game Quidditch that he talked himself into circles about, but stories couldn't make up for the feeling of flying in the air, like Lily did at home on the swings.

For weeks before, James Potter and Sirius Black—as thick as thieves and twice as devious—had bragged about whipping through the skies on their brooms, using their fast reflexes to catch the apples in the orchards, and frightening the nesting birds so badly they probably never visited the Potter or Black homes ever again. Severus, though, had been so nervous Lily worried that he was going to faint.

She gave him a comforting smile as the lesson begun, making sure that Potter and Black couldn't see it. They would only tease Severus something awful, bullying little toe-rags that they were. Severus gave a slight, jerky nod. And their flying coach, Madam Astor, had a sharp face with a rather fearsome glare, so that probably didn't make Severus feel any better. She walked around and around, making them call their brooms up, correcting their grip, scrutinizing them carefully for the troublemakers.

Lily was pleased when she was one of the first ones who broom came up on their first try; Sev's had barely moved at all, though, to her displeasure, Potter's had sprang into his hands like an old friend before he even bothered to say the words. The highlight of the class was when Madam Astor shouted at Potter that he had been holding his broom wrong for years. Potter didn't seem affected though, and Lily noticed that he didn't bother to change his grip.

"My dad says that it's better for the feints and dives," she heard him whisper to Black. "That old bat doesn't know what she's talking about."

When Madam Astor told them to mount their brooms, Lily couldn't wait to get into the air. She clasped the handle impatiently.

"And don't try any fancy maneuvers up there, you hear me? Yes, Potter, I mean you!" Madam Astor barked at Potter, who only rolled his eyes and messed up his hair some more. "Now, on the count of three, go up! One, two, three!"

Lily closed her eyes, and kicked off the ground. She felt the wind whipping by her, making her robes billow and her hair fan out. She felt the familiar surge of weightlessness for a moment, the feelings of having nothing solid beneath her. She felt the fierce joy of finally soaring through the skies, the way she always wanted. Lily opened her eyes, and gasped slightly; she was almost eighty feet up, higher than any of their classmates. She was in the air, in the sky.

This was flying.

This was magical.

_She_ was magical.

Lily grinned and leaned to the front instinctively; the broom rocketed forward. She pushed the broom down, laughing as the broom shot to the ground like a plummeting rock. She jerked up, pleased when the broom stopped like an obedient pet; good timing too, another few seconds and she would have gone _splat_! all over the grass.

Some of the more arrogant boys—like Potter and Black—immediately began to twist and flip around in midair, flying near classmates at breakneck speed and making the more nervous students squeal as they felt a rush of air pass them. Madam Astor shouted some more, but there were a dozen or so boys who weren't interested in hearing her talk about safety and flying slowly.

Lily looks for Sev, eager to share her success with flying. She catches sight of him, but then she sees Potter and Black muttering secretively to each other. Black shoots a malicious smirk in Sev's direction. Lily frowns. Potter and Black were bullies, but surely they wouldn't—

A crash. A shout.

Her heart catches in her throat when she sees Sev lying, white and motionless, on the ground.

* * *

3.

Later, in the Hospital Wing, Severus grabs her hands. "I don't want you to fly anymore."

Lily tries not to show her wince at his tight grip. "It's okay, Sev. Madame Collins said that you would be fine. And I'll be careful."

"Potter and Black will try to hurt you too," Severus insists. His black eyes are almost wild—must be a side-effect of the pain potions the nurse had given him, Lily thinks. "Don't give them that chance. Please, Lily."

Lily smiles and agrees, because she doesn't want to argue with her friend who is ill and injured. She doesn't think much of it, and since basic flying lessons were mandatory anyway, she would have an excuse not to keep her promise.

But then the lessons are canceled after Potter's father complained that the instructor was inept, and classes kept Lily too busy to fly alone. Besides, the only flying sport was Quidditch, and she had no interest in it at all. And, after all, she _did _promise Sev.

For the rest of her life, though, Lily will secretly regret not taking the chance to fly.

* * *

4.

Two months in, Lily decides to make a new friend. She has been so busy keeping up with schoolwork, making sure she remembers the passageways, perusing thick tomes from the library, evading Potter and Black, and making time to meet up with Sev that she barely notices that she has not made one new friend yet.

So naturally, being the brave, direct person that she is, Lily goes up to the girl with thick glasses who is sitting alone in the Gryffindor Common Room. The other girl is writing Professor Flitwick's essay, and seems to struggling. Lily stands next to her until the girl notices that she is not alone. The girl peers up through the thick glasses. "Err…do you want something?"

"We're friends, right?" Lily has found that this is a tactic that works quite well in making new friends. Most people won't just straight out say that they won't be your friend. Especially shy people, like this girl. Lily has not seen the girl in front of her ever speak up in a class or to another person. Lily has not seen her speak at all.

The girl blinks confusedly. "Err…sure?"

Lily beams. "I'm Lily Evans."

"Rita Skeeter." Lily's new friend offers a tentative smile.

Lily seats herself next to her new friend, pushing away a pile of papers. "Now let me help you with that essay."

* * *

5.

Daddy sends thirty-seven letters from when she leaves for Hogwarts to when she returns home for the holidays. They have funny anecdotes and witty remarks and Daddy makes sure to write her a story at least once a week. Daddy's letters are warm and loving, and make Lily feel aching loneliness that not even Sev and Rita can keep at bay

Mummy is less reliable as a correspondent, but there are a half dozen of letters from her as well, perfumed and badly spelled as always, focusing more on the latest fashions than anything else. Lily still tucks them carefully into her notebook and reads them every night before she goes to bed.

Tuney sends no letters.

* * *

6.

For the first time since the arrival of her Hogwarts letter, Lily and her sister are in agreement.

"But I don't want to go to Grandmother's for Christmas dinner!" Lily moaned. When she was younger, Lily had committed the mistake of calling Grandmother "Granma" like her friends called their grandmothers, and had endured an almost hour-long lecture in return on properly addressing one's elders.

"Mum," Tuney whined. Tuney had decided that only little babies called their mother "Mummy" still. "Do we have to?"

In the driver's seat, Harry was silent, but it didn't take much imagination to think that he agreed with his daughters.

Iris huffs. "Seriously, I can't believe I didn't figure this out earlier! You girls have been pretending to be sick for every Christmas for five years now, haven't you?"

Lily and Tuney exchange looks. As a matter of fact, they have. Both girls hated Christmas dinner at their grandparents' house. Iris' parents—Harry's were dead—were Class-A snobs who looked down on the Evans because Harry was not, like their other sons-in-law, filthy rich and terribly obese. They didn't like Lily or Tuney that much either, criticizing the girls for bad posture, bad fashion sense, low intelligence, and so on. Lily didn't understand why her mother loved going there so much.

Since Lily was six, the Evans girls dreaded Christmas for this very reason. That year, though, Lily had unfortunately fallen sick with the flu, and Iris had, with ill grace, agreed that driving all the way to London with a sick child was too much hassle. From that year on, Lily and Tuney took turns feigning illness to get out of Christmas dinner. But this year, with Lily at Hogwarts, Tuney had been discovered by their mother, and that was why the Evans family was on their way to the hated Christmas dinner. Lily didn't think that five years would have changed Grandmother's habits very much.

"Iris!" A short, plump man hobbled forward to embrace Lily's mother. "It's been too long."

Iris smiled at her brother. "I know, Phil. Girls," she called, "come out to say high to your Uncle Phil."

Lily and Tuney reluctantly got out. "Hello, Uncle Phil," they chorused.

Harry slammed the car door shut. Then he politely greeted, "Hello, Philip."

Uncle Phil nodded coldly. "Harry."

Uncle Phil did not look like Iris' brother. While Lily's mother retained her good looks even as became middle-aged, Philip Thompson was not handsome, and could not ever be mistaken to have ever been handsome. He lacked Iris' height and elegance, and while they shared the same golden hair, Phil's locks were sparse and greasy. Good food and no exercise had made him, while not obese, certainly very plump.

"Well, come on in," Phil laughed to fill the awkward silence, and the Evans entered.

The house was large and opulently furnished, and Lily knew that Tuney would have loved to come here every year if it didn't mean that she would have to endure Grandmother's disapproving remarks. A large chandelier hung on the middle of the dining room on top of an enormous carved wooden table.

Everyone was already here. Like always, Grandmother and Grandfather sat on opposite ends of the table—"To better see what's happening on both sides so that they can scold us properly," Tuney muttered under her breath.

Lily stifled her giggles.

"Well, sit down," Grandmother called. Her hair was in a severe bun, and she sat rigidly, her sharp grey eyes focused and intelligent. Lily didn't think that Grandmother's back ever touched the back of the chair she was sitting in. Lily moved to sit next to Tuney, but before she could, Grandmother told her to sit next to her. Tuney gave her a sympathetic look.

When they were all sitting, Grandmother rang for the first course, a giant roast turkey with potatoes. Then, she led prayer.

Lily chortled to herself at what Grandmother would say if she knew Lily was a witch. Her father had convinced Mummy that Grandmother didn't need to know something like that, and Mummy had agreed after a while reluctantly. Mummy wanted Grandmother to know that at least one of her daughters had become something Uncle Phil and Aunt Rhia's children could not.

Lily yelped as Grandmother prodded her.

"Whatever are you thinking about, young lady!" Grandmother hissed. Grandmother never used names; it was either 'young lady' or 'young man'. "It is most unbecoming to daydream at dinner!"

"Sorry, Grandmother," Lily said dutifully.

Grandmother seemed satisfied, because dinner continued peacefully—or at least, as peacefully as it could. Grandmother and Grandfather made a total of twenty-one comments that night, not including Grandmother's initial rebuke.

"Petunia, that slouch is most undignified. Sit up, girl!" Grandfather was upset. He cared about posture even more than Grandmother did.

When the soup course came. "Young lady, do not slurp your soup like a pig! You have a spoon, do you not?"

"No, that's not the right spoon!" What was the difference between them? They were both spoons.

"Throwing rolls at your cousins is _not_ the behavior of a young lady!"

Lily twitched at the last one when fat cousin Leona smirks. Leona is two years older than Lily, the same age as Tuney, but she only ever sneers at Lily's sister. Cousin Leona is hateful and mean and likes to make fun of the price of their clothes. Tuney looks like she wants to say something back to Grandmother, say something about Leona throwing the rolls first, but thinks better of it. It would only get Grandmother madder.

Lily angrily glares at Leona, who is drinking soup. Leona doesn't notice Lily, not as she places the spoon in her mouth—and screams. Conservation abruptly stops as the family of Thompsons and their spouses and children swivel to look at Leona, and Aunt Paula scrambles over to her daughter. "What's wrong, darling?" she cooes sickeningly.

Leona points to the spoon, eyes bugging. Aunt Paula relaxes, not realizing, and tries to pull it out, and fails. Across the table, Tuney's eyes meet Lily's, though her sister quickly looks down. Grandmother's hawkish eyes rest on Lily, carefully, calculatingly. Lily doesn't dare raise her head for fear that Grandmother will be able to read her guilt in her face.

In the back of her mind, the fear that she will be thrown in Azkaban for doing magic out of school exists, but is it disappearing in front of the more imminent threat of Grandmother, who does not remove her gaze from Lily, not even when Uncle Phil tries to pry Leona away from Aunt Paula amid wails and shrieks to rush her to the hospital.

* * *

7.

On her birthday, Lily receives four presents. Mummy and Daddy send her a book on Charms, because Lily had written them that Charms was her favorite subject. Severus, blushing, had shoved a small wrapped present in her hands, which turned out to be a book on Potions. Rita—who somehow, mysteriously, managed to find out Lily's birthday—gave her a book on History.

Lily is grateful, but mostly she is grumpy because everyone thinks she likes books so much. Sure, she enjoys being a good student, and she likes Charms and Potions and History, but, that does not translate into a mad desire to read every book she can get her hands on. So she smiles and thanks them, and holds her annoyance in check.

That evening, a small barn owl clicks its talons against her window, and Lily curiously lets it in. It carries a small, plain package. There is no note, no card. When she opens it, something falls onto the floor. It is a simple, black-bound, journal from a variety store in Vauxhill Road, London. Inside, someone has painstakingly hand-drawn pictures of flowers: petunias and lilies, lilies and petunias. And at the end, _Love, Tuney_.

Lily feels conflicted.

After that incident with cousin Leona, Lily begins to see Tuney's handwriting more and more in the letters she receives from home. She thinks about what it took to gain her sister's forgiveness, and wonders if it was the right thing to do. Lily remembers how Daddy had given her that look—sad and disappointed and resigned at the same time. How Leona had looked so scared and refused to speak because the surgery had left her with a lisp when Daddy had dragged to visit her cousin before they left.

The memory makes Lily feel like a monster.

* * *

8.

"—and my pineapple shredded itself after I finished making it tap dance!" Lily moaned. "I'm pretty sure I failed my Charms exam."

Rita sighs. "Lily, you are the most talented witch I know. I'm sure you did very well on all of your exams." Her voice is neutrally robotic, but if Lily bothered to listen closely, which she didn't, she would be able to detect the faint note of exasperation in her friend's voice.

Severus hurries over, just finished with his Potions exam. "Hi, Lily," he says, ignoring Rita as always. "How did you think you did?"

As Lily begin wailing about how she is going to be kicked out of Hogwarts for failing her final exams, Severus gets the inkling that perhaps that wasn't the best question to ask.

* * *

9.

When Lily stumbles through Platform 9 ¾ and sees Tuney waving eagerly at her, all jealousy of Hogwarts and magic gone, she decides that what happened with Leona doesn't matter. After all, it wasn't as if any real damage resulted.

Besides, Lily never liked her cousin much anyway.


End file.
